Yo Hablo Californio

In my interactions with my fellow LAFSC chums I discovered something about myself, and California for that matter. I was chatting with someone about the plans we were making for the next day and somewhere in there I said, "yo tambien!" and "que bueno" and "that would be no bueno" and "see you manana." And each one of these phrases received a blank look of confusion. After the final look, I stopped and realized, Oh this lovely person from Iowa has probably never really become familiar with Spanish- at all! So I think I should be able to write on my resume that I speak English, Spanish, and Californian, which is a blended dialect similar to Spanglish. And if I ever went to the Midwest, I'm pretty certain I'd need a translator.

I also had the good fortune to help out with the Dream Center's Adopt a Block program on Saturday. It was a blast. I played with some incredible kids at the Grape St. housing projects and I got a Crayola "tattoo" of a flower on my hand.

Our experience actually getting to where we needed to be was not quite so simple as drawing a floppy orange flower. My roomies and I were the first to arrive at the Dream Center. We were about 20 minutes early because we left 10 minutes early and hit all greens. When we got there a random man directed us to the cafe. Then we sat around there while groups of LAFSC students walked around and past the cafe headed in all kinds of directions. We gathered most of them up and then awkwardly called our supervisor to see where she was, unfortunately she did not pick up the first three times. Then we all wandered into a darkened gym where tons of people were milling about, praying, and talking. Our group of 55 students shuffled in and stood as a confused unit. The next direction we were told was that our supervisor would be there. The thing is, the way things happened our directions might as well have been, Follow the Red Star until you see a Green Sign, someone is waiting for you there and they will give you your next step. And then you get to the green sign and there are a dozen people there. They all give you funny looks because you look like a tornado just spit you out and you desperately walk up to each of them and beseech, "Are you the Someonee?! Are you the Someone!?" Then a man in a blue poncho that you didn't notice before hands you an envelope that says "follow the color Yellow until you reach the Black Tree." GAH!

More recently, I had the great privilege of spending my birthday with friends here and visiting friends. We watched Juraissic Park and had chicken & waffles at Roscoe's and played Quelf like we couldn't get enough out of making fools of ourselves. It was a blast.